Intuit Inc. (INTU) announced Wednesday it is incorporating features from Mint, its well-known consumer-facing PFM software, into its digital banking line. Pilot tests with bank customers will begin later this spring, with general availability of the offering expected to hit by early next year.

Intuit bought Mint, which now counts more than 12 million users, in 2009.

The initial Mint product line for banks will combine Intuit mobile banking apps and online banking software with aspects of Mint PFM featured front and center. On the online banking home page, Mint content, such as a newsfeed-like stream of account alerts and a collective view of linked external accounts, will appear in widgets to customers. To access more Mint features, such as a budget creation tool and a feature that displays category spending within a pie chart, consumers will click on a tab labeled Mint.

"This is a sign of where Intuit needs to go and wants to go. …It's all part of this essential movement to resurrect and redefine PFM," says Mark Schwanhausser, director multichannel financial services at Javelin Strategy & Research. "This is where the industry as a whole will go. …I'm intrigued and happy to see it. The word that comes to mind is 'finally.'"

Intuit's move underscores a trend at large, in which banks and other financial services providers feature PFM tools within digital banking view in an attempt to engage more users. To date, PFM delivered through online banking has suffered from single-digit adoption rates, which some blame on poor positioning and a lack of intuitiveness within the design of the features.

Some banks have already begun featuring PFM tools in a more prominent way. Regions Bank, for one, recently added pie charts of online banking customers' transactions on the home page as an attempt to draw customers to PFM services.

Future iterations of Mint online banking, meanwhile, may integrate PFM elements more deeply with online banking. (Think of the ability to set up goals while a person views his savings account, for example.) "We have more ambitious plans down the road," Intuit's Wright says.

In the meantime, it's worth noting what didn't make the homepage of Intuit's new product: the ubiquitous pie chart. "It has fewer payoffs for the key real estate," Javelin's Schwanhausser says. The decision, he says, likely has to do with how the slices of pie won't change much for consumers over time.

Instead, account alerts are getting prime real estate in a widget labeled "Money Insights" on the home page, which analysts view as the most interesting content of the forthcoming Mint offering for banks.

"That's what I think people want," Shevlin says. The section displays a feed of account alerts, such as when a credit card APR has increased, for example.

Cathy Graeber, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Inc., also cited built-in advice as the most intriguing PFM tool as it can fuel more ways banks can cross-sell, if done successfully.

Though the final product is in pilot phase, one notable difference between Mint.com and Mint digital banking is that the latter will only serve offers to consumers from a specific bank, while consumer-facing Mint pitches offers from numerous banks, including ones that pay it. In other words, in Mint digital banking, consumers won't get pitches by a bank's competitors.

Shevlin points out this may potentially cannibalize current Mint advertisers.

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Comments (3)

Need to target Tablet users; as personal finance applications have been able to offer significantly better user experience with better form factors of tablets.

Posted by chandan | Thursday, April 04 2013 at 12:18AM ET

Buried the lede a bit with this one; "Cathy Graeber...also cited built-in advice as the most intriguing PFM tool as it can fuel more ways banks can cross-sell, if done successfully."

PFM represents one of the best ways to improve the effectiveness of banks' cross-sell efforts. With an aggregate picture of a consumer's financial accounts and goals, banks have all the insight they need to create incredibly personalized and valuable cross-sell offers. Intuit allowing banks to white-label Mint has the potential to add a lot of value to banks' account acquisition efforts...if done successfully.

Posted by Alex Johnson | Wednesday, April 10 2013 at 10:18AM ET

Mint.com for banks has many question marks: Intuit agreed in July to sell its digital banking division and keep Mint.com i(http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_126/thoma-bravo-to-buy-intuits-financial-services-unit-for-1-billion-dollars-1060311-1.html)